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ksmith"Thoughtful" is the best mood indicator I can find. "Bemused" would be better. Miffed. Several things in play here.
I've seen this Salon piece mentioned in several writers lists. It didn't irritate me as much as it did some writers--I take some of the author's meaning as much as I disagree with some of what she said. I'm sorry that as an "important" author, she isn't receiving the money/acclaim/publish-for-life guarantee that she apparently feels is her due. Her agent comforts her with the comment that important books don't sell, and her NYT bestseller friend plays down her success by saying that she still worries each day about the state of her career. They may indeed feel as they do; they may also be seeking to prop up their client/friend. Jane Austin Doe is propping herself up as well by grasping at the Important Author straw (mixed metaphor? Skirting the edge there). I've seen this before in SF, along with the no-publisher-support straw and the SF-market-is-dying tree trunk (which I often hang onto for support myself).
We won't even discuss her mainstream "midlist" advances, which count as "upper end of the midlist and edging into bestseller' region for genre advances. Two different worlds--I've been told that while genre doesn't pay as well, you have more chances to make it/fail because the financial risk isn't as great. Failure at the mainstream level means more because it costs more.
Counter this with the Scalzi piece which is a polar opposite in attitude. The Hardcore Commercial Author Strikes Back. Funny. True, as far as it goes. Life isn't fair. Publishers need to make money. Stuff we can't understand sells for reasons we can't fathom. Deal with it.
While I feel more attuned to his attitude than Jane Austin Doe's, I cite Jane's comment that publishing used to be content with 4-6% profit, and now demands 15-18%. I have heard this before, and simply because this is now the way it is doesn't mean that the publisher side of the Force is completely without blame in the demise of the midlist and the fact that authors with acceptable or borderline numbers are no longer being offered contracts. I have heard the opinion that publishers will drop a middlin' midlist author in favor of offering advances to two or three or more new novelists, the reason being that the midlister is pretty much a known commodity whose odds of breaking out are probably low, while there's always a chance that lightning could strike with a new author, leaving the publisher with a bestseller to add to the stable. I have read more than once the opinion that publishing is devolving into two classes, new authors and bestsellers, with nothing in-between but air.
The bottom line? I think there's truth in both essays, as well as some glossing and self-justification. One POV doesn't say it all. I'm currently trying to think of more commercially viable plots and characters as I try to figure out the next steps in my writing career. I've read the books that offer tips on how to construct bestselling plots and develop characters the greatest number of readers can identify with, but also understand that if it was as easy as constructing a checklist and ticking off the points, we'd be up to our armpits in written-to-order mega bestsellers. Meanwhile, books that no one in the publishing industry paid attention to build word of mouth and attract readers by the hundreds of thousands. As with movies, another medium where the midlist equivalent seems endangered, it isn't all cookbook yet. The question in my mind is whether the current trend toward a shrinking midlist may lead to the situation where veteran voices who haven't managed to break into the upper sales reaches will be done out of their chance to ever write that sort of off the beaten track book that captures readers. As in economics, the workplace, and other venues, you need the journeymen, the middle class, the pluggers, because you have as much of a chance of finding bestselling books there as you do when all you do with new authors, and it is more economically and artistically sound to maintain that solid foundation than it is continually mow down and reseed, mow down and reseed.
More mixed metaphors. Oh well, it''s getting late. I am not a natural essayist, and I daresay it shows. All I know is that I am resigned to the fact that a midlister whose numbers aren't moving upwards is a midlister whose career is at risk. I've accepted the facts of life as I am told they are. Now what?
In other news, today was the first official day of the Festival. I checked out the panels and didn't see anything that interested me. So I played hooky, sleeping in and mucking about. I spent part of the afternoon wandering up and down Main Street, which is a C'ville version of State Street in Madison Wisconsin. A walking street lined with funky shops, little coffeeshops, used and new bookstores and restaurants. Jewelry stores, which can be my downfall. I wandered into one because some sale earrings on an outside table caught my eye--tiny mother-of-pearl studs set in sterling. I walked inside, earrings in hand, and checked out the rest of the cases. Mixed white and yellow gold bracelets. A weakness. Opals. Big weakness. So I waited for the jeweler to finish with the customer she'd been working with when I walked in. Tried on a couple of bracelets, a couple of rings. Was treated to the sight of a really nice yellow/white gold bracelet of a very modern design that the jeweler had been keeping behind the counter. It was overpriced at $600, she said, but she'd be willing to cut me a deal. $480.
During the discussion, I mentioned that I wrote SF. It also came out that I worked for a pharmaceutical company, and after that I was treated to commentary about these companies are killing people with their drugs, specifically cancer patients and chemotherapies. I said that the problem with cancer treatments are that they kill healthy cells as well as cancer cells, and was treated to a pitying look and the reply that that's what the pharma companies want me to believe. Beyond vague mention of a type of blood test that is available outside the US but is ignored by oncologists inside the US, I was given any specifics. I listened for a time, and departed with the urging that I need to write the expose about how the pharmaceutical companies are killing people with their drugs.
I'm starting to feel that way lawyers must feel when the jokes start flying thick and fast. While I feel the pharma industry has only themselves to blame for much of their bad press and poor image, I rather resent the accusation that we're slaughtering people right and left in our quest for profit. I will not insist that Western medicine has all the answers. It doesn't. I have heard about amino acid treatments in Japan that have been used to treat liver cancer, and have heard of reduction in tumor size though not of cure. I'm making the assumption that the treatments this woman alluded to are of Eastern origin, and that she feels they are being given short shrift in favor of Western treatments. I would think that in this era of the internet and the rising importance of non-Western economies that a solid treatment for a disease would be publicized and that the scientists behind such a treatment would find a way to publish their studies/findings even if commercial interests sought to block them. In fact,I would go so far as to say that instead of burying/ignoring such treatments, Western pharma companies would crawl up one anothers' backs to lock up the rights for them WITH AN EYE TOWARD DEVELOPING THEM COMMERCIALLY AND SELLING THEM. The company that markets a solid treatment, much less a cure, for cancer will be able to write its own ticket. They wouldn't do themselves out of one of medicine's Holy Grails in the interest of industrial solidarity. In a case such as that, it would be every company for itself.
And I wish to hell that I could have thought of these arguments when I was standing in that woman's store being treated to said pitying looks. If nothing else, though, my anger made it quite easy for me to content myself with my $10 earrings and set aside any consideration of that really stunning bracelet she sought to tempt me with. I also filed away the fact that this was the second jeweler who tried the same type of psych job with me, immediately leading me from a cheaper item to a much more expensive item, then hinting that the more expensive item is most likely out of my price range. That has worked with me in the past with one jeweler who is a popular fixture at SF cons. I love her work, and admit that the tactic tweaked my ego as it was meant to do, compelling me to buy a piece I normally would have decided against as too expensive. Well, what worked with me before won't work anymore. Something about getting the same psych from two different artisans raised my hackles, even though I knew on an intellectual level that it makes sense that it is something they do. I've been cured.
Afterwards, I bought 5 t-shirts for $19.99 at Foot Locker, so my shopping sojourn wasn't a total wash.
I've seen this Salon piece mentioned in several writers lists. It didn't irritate me as much as it did some writers--I take some of the author's meaning as much as I disagree with some of what she said. I'm sorry that as an "important" author, she isn't receiving the money/acclaim/publish-for-life guarantee that she apparently feels is her due. Her agent comforts her with the comment that important books don't sell, and her NYT bestseller friend plays down her success by saying that she still worries each day about the state of her career. They may indeed feel as they do; they may also be seeking to prop up their client/friend. Jane Austin Doe is propping herself up as well by grasping at the Important Author straw (mixed metaphor? Skirting the edge there). I've seen this before in SF, along with the no-publisher-support straw and the SF-market-is-dying tree trunk (which I often hang onto for support myself).
We won't even discuss her mainstream "midlist" advances, which count as "upper end of the midlist and edging into bestseller' region for genre advances. Two different worlds--I've been told that while genre doesn't pay as well, you have more chances to make it/fail because the financial risk isn't as great. Failure at the mainstream level means more because it costs more.
Counter this with the Scalzi piece which is a polar opposite in attitude. The Hardcore Commercial Author Strikes Back. Funny. True, as far as it goes. Life isn't fair. Publishers need to make money. Stuff we can't understand sells for reasons we can't fathom. Deal with it.
While I feel more attuned to his attitude than Jane Austin Doe's, I cite Jane's comment that publishing used to be content with 4-6% profit, and now demands 15-18%. I have heard this before, and simply because this is now the way it is doesn't mean that the publisher side of the Force is completely without blame in the demise of the midlist and the fact that authors with acceptable or borderline numbers are no longer being offered contracts. I have heard the opinion that publishers will drop a middlin' midlist author in favor of offering advances to two or three or more new novelists, the reason being that the midlister is pretty much a known commodity whose odds of breaking out are probably low, while there's always a chance that lightning could strike with a new author, leaving the publisher with a bestseller to add to the stable. I have read more than once the opinion that publishing is devolving into two classes, new authors and bestsellers, with nothing in-between but air.
The bottom line? I think there's truth in both essays, as well as some glossing and self-justification. One POV doesn't say it all. I'm currently trying to think of more commercially viable plots and characters as I try to figure out the next steps in my writing career. I've read the books that offer tips on how to construct bestselling plots and develop characters the greatest number of readers can identify with, but also understand that if it was as easy as constructing a checklist and ticking off the points, we'd be up to our armpits in written-to-order mega bestsellers. Meanwhile, books that no one in the publishing industry paid attention to build word of mouth and attract readers by the hundreds of thousands. As with movies, another medium where the midlist equivalent seems endangered, it isn't all cookbook yet. The question in my mind is whether the current trend toward a shrinking midlist may lead to the situation where veteran voices who haven't managed to break into the upper sales reaches will be done out of their chance to ever write that sort of off the beaten track book that captures readers. As in economics, the workplace, and other venues, you need the journeymen, the middle class, the pluggers, because you have as much of a chance of finding bestselling books there as you do when all you do with new authors, and it is more economically and artistically sound to maintain that solid foundation than it is continually mow down and reseed, mow down and reseed.
More mixed metaphors. Oh well, it''s getting late. I am not a natural essayist, and I daresay it shows. All I know is that I am resigned to the fact that a midlister whose numbers aren't moving upwards is a midlister whose career is at risk. I've accepted the facts of life as I am told they are. Now what?
In other news, today was the first official day of the Festival. I checked out the panels and didn't see anything that interested me. So I played hooky, sleeping in and mucking about. I spent part of the afternoon wandering up and down Main Street, which is a C'ville version of State Street in Madison Wisconsin. A walking street lined with funky shops, little coffeeshops, used and new bookstores and restaurants. Jewelry stores, which can be my downfall. I wandered into one because some sale earrings on an outside table caught my eye--tiny mother-of-pearl studs set in sterling. I walked inside, earrings in hand, and checked out the rest of the cases. Mixed white and yellow gold bracelets. A weakness. Opals. Big weakness. So I waited for the jeweler to finish with the customer she'd been working with when I walked in. Tried on a couple of bracelets, a couple of rings. Was treated to the sight of a really nice yellow/white gold bracelet of a very modern design that the jeweler had been keeping behind the counter. It was overpriced at $600, she said, but she'd be willing to cut me a deal. $480.
During the discussion, I mentioned that I wrote SF. It also came out that I worked for a pharmaceutical company, and after that I was treated to commentary about these companies are killing people with their drugs, specifically cancer patients and chemotherapies. I said that the problem with cancer treatments are that they kill healthy cells as well as cancer cells, and was treated to a pitying look and the reply that that's what the pharma companies want me to believe. Beyond vague mention of a type of blood test that is available outside the US but is ignored by oncologists inside the US, I was given any specifics. I listened for a time, and departed with the urging that I need to write the expose about how the pharmaceutical companies are killing people with their drugs.
I'm starting to feel that way lawyers must feel when the jokes start flying thick and fast. While I feel the pharma industry has only themselves to blame for much of their bad press and poor image, I rather resent the accusation that we're slaughtering people right and left in our quest for profit. I will not insist that Western medicine has all the answers. It doesn't. I have heard about amino acid treatments in Japan that have been used to treat liver cancer, and have heard of reduction in tumor size though not of cure. I'm making the assumption that the treatments this woman alluded to are of Eastern origin, and that she feels they are being given short shrift in favor of Western treatments. I would think that in this era of the internet and the rising importance of non-Western economies that a solid treatment for a disease would be publicized and that the scientists behind such a treatment would find a way to publish their studies/findings even if commercial interests sought to block them. In fact,I would go so far as to say that instead of burying/ignoring such treatments, Western pharma companies would crawl up one anothers' backs to lock up the rights for them WITH AN EYE TOWARD DEVELOPING THEM COMMERCIALLY AND SELLING THEM. The company that markets a solid treatment, much less a cure, for cancer will be able to write its own ticket. They wouldn't do themselves out of one of medicine's Holy Grails in the interest of industrial solidarity. In a case such as that, it would be every company for itself.
And I wish to hell that I could have thought of these arguments when I was standing in that woman's store being treated to said pitying looks. If nothing else, though, my anger made it quite easy for me to content myself with my $10 earrings and set aside any consideration of that really stunning bracelet she sought to tempt me with. I also filed away the fact that this was the second jeweler who tried the same type of psych job with me, immediately leading me from a cheaper item to a much more expensive item, then hinting that the more expensive item is most likely out of my price range. That has worked with me in the past with one jeweler who is a popular fixture at SF cons. I love her work, and admit that the tactic tweaked my ego as it was meant to do, compelling me to buy a piece I normally would have decided against as too expensive. Well, what worked with me before won't work anymore. Something about getting the same psych from two different artisans raised my hackles, even though I knew on an intellectual level that it makes sense that it is something they do. I've been cured.
Afterwards, I bought 5 t-shirts for $19.99 at Foot Locker, so my shopping sojourn wasn't a total wash.
